[ratww]

No, it doesn't, and no, it isn't. As much as some people like to pretend it doesn't exist, accidental complexity is a thing, and reducing it is part of our job. Also, there are ways of removing complexity of processes before they are turned into software, but that requires talking with people and agreeing. Not every program has to do everything.

[coldtea]

>As much as some people like to pretend it doesn't exist, accidental complexity is a thing

Yes, and it's often the best feature of the software, as far as the sale teams is concerned, because it allows them to sell concultancy fees or because it satisfies the customer by matching 100% it's crappy requirements (which they don't really need).

[alex_smart]

>accidental complexity is a thing

Of course it is, in fact it is pretty much all-pervasive in our field, even in very successful software companies - which makes me question whether removing it is as valuable as people make it out to be.

[NikolaNovak]

Yes, and I think you provided a lot of the answer.

You can spend 5 years customizing off the shelf ERP software to do insane things because John in accounting and Jane in HR won't budge from weird processes they built over the decades... Or you can use that opportunity for business transformation, simplify their processes and their program, save money, reduce errors, improve responsiveness and timeliness, and generally make it a win win win.

Not all complexity can be reduced of course. I can imagine self driving cars, rocket science, etc are all about critical edge cases.

But when it comes to business, and particularly back office processes (where a huge amount of IT goes) , a lot of complexity is unnecessary. Each company each department each person is certain they are special, unique, and their requirements are paramount and unchangeable. But if you move around a bit you'll come to believe otherwise.

[recursive]

Even after removing some, there's still likely to be some less. It seems like it's probably good to remove it, all else being equal.

[ratww]

Of course it's is valuable. Complexity makes software expensive to make, so removing it is literally worth a lot of money that can be better spent making features. Nobody buys software because it's accidentally complex, they buy it because of features, quality (which is something that's also affected by complexity!), etc.

The only reason complexity is prevalent is due to a shortage and geniuses (and also a shortage of "Some" too, if we're going by Alan Perlis' quote).